What is a "Sonic Tasting?"

A Sonic Tasting is a pairing event where we take a flight of beer and pair each drink with custom written music designed to bring out particular qualities of the beer and enhance the overall experience. Sonic Tastings are Joe Chris's original development based off of Ben Houge's concept of a "Food Opera" and Dr. Charles Spence's research on "Cross modal perception" at Oxford University.

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Sound heavily impacts the way we eat, from the speed we eat/drink to how much of it we perceive. With the right music and atmosphere, we can impact the perception of taste up to 25%, while simultaneously increasing the perceived enjoyment of the food/beverage. 

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The music you will hear tonight was written and composed by Joe Chris, and "performed" via his own custom coded musical engines designed to create generative musical playback in a way unlike how a "human" would - so the music can repeat nearly endlessly. These concepts are rooted in the minimalist music of composers such as Brian Eno, Terry Riley, & Steve Reich, with other musical ideas and technology heavily borrowing from his experience composing soundtracks for video games.